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The Spirindfield Tests 
1846-1903-6 

A STUDY IN THE 

Three R's 




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The Springfield Tests 

1846--1905-6 



A STUDY IN 



The Three R's 

' BV .. .. : . 

JOHN L4WRENCE. -^IL^t' 

Principal Central Street Grammar School 

Springfield, Massachusetts 




Printed for 
MILES C. HOLDEN, Secretary 

The Holden Patent Book Cover Company 

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 



i) 1 wu CJooies rtWBived ti 



i, OCT je r^ob I U f\ -^o t> G 



U^s* a, xxc< K..J 



To THE Public: 

Realizing the deep public interest in the 

RECENT changes IN THE METHODS AND COURSES 

of public school education, and feeling the 
need of intelligently formed opinions regarding 
such matters, the publishers present this book- 
let, at a price which only partially covers 
the cost, as a contribution to the cause of 
education. 

Miles C. Holden 
June, 1908. 

The Holden Patent Book Cover Company, 
Springfield, Mass. 



Copyright jqo8 by The Holden Patent Book Cover Company 



Contents 

PAGE 

Preface 4 

Table, Results of Comparative Tests . . 6 

Spelling and Arithmetic 7 

Locational Geography 20 

Penmanship 29 

Careers of Pupils of 1846 38 

Conditions in the Old Schools 43 



Preface 

ON November 12, 1905, the Springfield Republican printed an 
article on the " Schools of Sixty Years Ago," contributed by 
the writer. It gave a comparison of the results of exami- 
nations in spelling and arithmetic of 1846 and 1905 as well as the 
words and questions of the old tests. The article was copied by the 
New York School Journal of December second and later by most of 
the educational papers of the country. In three or four months 
the tests had been tried in hundreds of places and many of the 
dailies in our leading cities had commented editorially or otherwise ; 
while innumerable letters had been received from school committees, 
superintendents and principals. 

These indications of widespread interest have induced the writer 
to make use of the remaining tests, — geography and penmanship, — 
for comparison with present day work, to analyze more thoroughly 
the work of the pupils of 1846, and to put the whole into a more 
permanent form. 

In publishing this matter, the only desire is to place within 
reach of everybody interested, some definite and tangible evidence 
bearing upon that much discussed subject, — the three R's. The 
changes made in the curricula of the public schools during the past 
half century have led many people to assume that the branches so 
strongly emphasized in earlier times, are being neglected today, 
and that the work in the so-called fundamental studies was better 
years ago than it is now. As Mr. George H. Martin, Secretary of 
the Massachusetts State Board of Education, writes in his report 
of 1905-6: "Many people imagine a golden age somewhere in the 
past when everybody habitually spelled correctly." He might 
have added, — when everybody ciphered accurately and read fluently. 
This feeling, — it can hardly be called an opinion, — has, from time 
to time, become so strong in some communities and has been so 
difficult to dissipate because of lack of substantial evidence, that it 
has often caused the withholding from progressive school committees 
and superintendents of that support which is so essential to success 
in any public undertaking. For many years the argument of the 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 5 

"Three R's" has been a weapon of great power in the hands of all 
kinds of men, used often but not always from honest motives and 
too frequently doing incalculable injury to the cause of education. 
The introduction of new subjects, some of which have been called 
"fads," into the courses of study, have made it reasonable to sup- 
pose that the results in the common branches could not be as good 
today as they were formerly. Few people, except educators, have 
considered the possibility of improving the work in any study by 
decreasing the time and increasing the concentration of the child 
and the skill of the teacher. Few people have endeavored seriously 
to find out to what extent such subjects as manual training and 
drawing, through correlation, "clinch" facts in arithmetic, — or 
how far spelling is improved by broadening the child's knowledge 
through a greater variety of reading matter or through such a 
branch as nature study. Few take the trouble to actually ascertain 
the facts regarding the amount of hard drill given today in the 
three R's or to refresh their memories by re-examining their child- 
hood compositions and spelling papers. 

It is the, privilege of the citizen to criticise ; it is no less his 
duty to examine evidence and arrive at opinions rationally and 
judicially. An opinion based upon an isolated instance or upon a 
false assumption may check progress in any line if held by the 
masses of the people or by a man in authority. If the results of the 
tests and investigations contained in -these pages aid in the forma- 
tion of intelligent opinions, the writer will feel that the hours spent 
in their preparation have been spent in service to that most demo- 
cratic institution in America, — that institution, which, when kept 
abreast of the times, takes the leading place among the agencies 
which make for peace and civilization, — the Public School. 

John L. Riley. 



Results of Tests 

Spelling — twenty words : 

Number of pupils who took tests . 
Average percentage of words correct . 

Arithmetic — eight examples : 

Number of pupils who took tests . 
Average percentage of answers correct 

Geography — twelve questions : 
Number pupils who took tests 
Average percentage of answers correct 



1846 1905-6 



85 


245 


40.6 


51.2 


79. 


245 


29.4 


65.5 


81 


219 


40.3 


53.4 



Spelling and Arithmetic 

CAN school children of today spell as well as the children of 
half a century ago? Is arithmetic taught as effectively now 
as it was when our fathers and grandfathers were boys? 
Are we neglecting the three R's? These questions disturb teachers, 
agitate school boards and sometimes produce violent controversies. 
The general opinion seems to be that in the "common branches" 
the modem school is inferior to the school of fifty or sixty years ago. 
There is only one way of settling in the public mind these ever- 
recurring questions and that is by giving examinations to pupils 
of today which were given in the schools of half a century ago, and 
coolly comparing results. Such test questions, however, with the 
answers, have seldom been preserved, and, in the absence of such 
material, critics of the modem schools have made claims for the 
schools of their boyhood which, for want of satisfactory evidence, 
have been difficult to refute. A few such papers, however, do exist, 
and in the interest of education, they should be preserved and 
consulted frequently m order that we may retain the proper 
perspective of our school days. 

Fifteen or sixteen years ago in the attic of the high school 
building in Springfield, Massachusetts, several old sets of examina- 
tion papers were found that had been written in the fall of 1846. 
These papers consisted of printed questions in geography and 
arithmetic, with answers written on the printed sheets, and written 
tests in spelling and penmanship. Mr. Parish, the second principal 
of the Springfield high school gave these examinations to his pupils, 
and to him and to Dr. Thomas M. Balliet, who as superintendent of 
schools preserved them in his safe, is due the fact that today we 
may look upon the actual work of our worthy parents. 

Two of these tests, spelling and arithmetic, were given to about 
two hundred and fifty ninth grade pupils of our local schools in 
March, 1905, and the results were carefully compared with the 
results of the tests of 1846. The questions in arithmetic were 
reprinted exactly as they appeared in the original papers, and both 
tests were given under the direction of one principal. The children 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



of five schools took part in the examination. The papers were sent 
to the directing principal and he examined and marked according 
to a uniform standard, the papers of the new and the old tests. 
Following are the results: — 



1846 



1905 



Spelling: 

Number pupils who took test .... 

Average percent correct 

Arithmetic: 

Number pupils who took test .... 

Average percent correct 

Below are the words of the spelling test, — a formidable list,- 
with the results of the examination in 1846 given in two tables: 

Table I. 



85 


245 


40.6 


51.2 


79 


245 


29.4 


65.5 



1 accidental 

2 accessible 

3 baptism 

4 chirography. . 

5 characteristic . 

6 deceitfully .... 

7 descendant . . . 

8 eccentric 

9 evanescent. . . 

10 fierceness 

1 1 f eignedly 

12 ghastliness. . . . 

13 gnawed 

14 heiress 

1 5 hysterics 

1 6 imbecility .... 

1 7 inconceivable . 

1 8 inconvenience . 

19 inefficient. . . . 

20 irresistible .... 



Girls, 32 



Total. 



CD P 

HO 


Times 
Incorrect 


22 


10 


14 


18 


16 


16 


10 


22 


14 


18 


15 


17 


8 


24 


10 


22 


5 


27 


13 


19 


7 


25 


7 


25 


12 


20 


17 


15 


16 


16 


16 


16 


8 


24 


12 


20 


8 


24 


6 


26 


236 


404 



Boys, 53 



51 O 

(u o 

pLiO 



0) 0^ 

■B o 

HO 



36.9 



39 
17 
38 
20 
25 
25 
16 
29 
12 
29 
21 
16 
21 
25 
24 
34 
12 
20 
25 
7 

455 



a 8 



14 
36 
15 
33 
28 
28 
37 
24 
41 
24 
32 
37 
32 
28 
29 
19 
41 
33 
28 
46 

605 



Co 

<U <U 

<D O 
PL,0 



42.9 



Total, 85 



0) ?^ 



• S O 

HO 



H 



61 
31 
54 
30 
39 
40 
24 
39 
17 
42 
28 
23 
33 
42 
40 
50 
20 
32 
33 
13 



24 
54 
31 
55 
46 
45 
61 
46 
68 
43 
57 
62 
52 
43 
45 
35 
65 
53 
52 
72 



691 1009 



Co 



(u o 
PMO 



40.6 













J' 



10 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



Table II. 



Number of pupils who had 

word correct 

1 word correct 

2 words correct 

3 words correct 

4 words correct 

5 words correct 

6 words correct 

7 words correct 

8 words correct 

9 words correct 

10 words correct 

1 1 words correct 

12 words correct 

13 words correct 

14 words correct 

15 words correct 

16 words correct 

17 words correct 

18 words correct 

19 words correct 

20 words correct 



'rls 


Boys 


Total 


2 


1 


3 


3 


6 


9 


5 


1 


6 





6 


6 





1 


1 


2 


3 


5 


3 


2 


5 


4 


2 


6 




4 


5 




2 


3 





4. 


4 




7 


8 




2 


3 


3 


1 


4 







1 




1 


2 





1 


1 




5 


6 







1 




3 


4 




1 


2 



Of the class of 1846, only 16 of the 85 pupils stood as high as 
70 percent in this spelling test, the present "passing" mark in 
most schools. Three pupils had none spelled correctly; nine had 
only one right; while 24, or more than one-fourth of the entire 
class, misspelled 17 or more words. The mistakes were interesting. 
The 31 who misspelled "baptism" spelled it in 15 different ways, 
and "heiress" was written by 43 pupils in 22 different ways. The 
following words, taken from the papers in spelling and geography 
prove that originality in spelHng was not unknown to the children 
of Mr. Parish's school. 



THE 


SPRINGFIELD 


TESTS 11 


heirress 


babtism 


Agsta 


hurriss 


babtisism 


Bristle 


heirruss 


batism 


SufEork 


heirees 


batisim 


Midlesex 


heimess 


baptsim 


Esexx 


hieress 


baptisim 


Berkshiere 


heress 


baptisimn 


Eirie 


hirress 


baptisem 


Ontareio 


hereis 


baptisom 


Mane 


airress 


baptisum 


Vamont 


airess 


baptisemn 


Rodiland 


airest 


* baptisim 


Connetticut 


airresst 


baptysm 


Comedieut 


airhess 


baptisiam 


Newjessy 


arress 


baptiasm 


Pencilvany 


arris 




Mishegan 


arriss 




Mysurie 


aries 




Misury 


ariest 






areress 






arerest 






eirress 






decietfully 


ineonvienee 


fiereness 


deceitefuUy 


inconvieneianee 


firereeness 


deceatfully 


ineonvienenee 


firceness 


deceatfuly 


incoeinanee 


fierseness 


decetfully 


inconveinence 


fiecness 


deceitfuly 


inconveaneyanee 


fisness 


decitefuUy 


ineonveinanee 


feieeness 


deceitfully 


inconvenianse 


feirceness 


deciotfully 


ineonvienienee 


fearsness 


deeitfully 


inconveinience 


feaeeness 


deseitfully 


ineonvenence 


feareeness 


diseeatfully 


ineonveinee 


fearciness 


dicetfuly 


ineonvenianee 


fereeness 


disseeetfuly 


ineonvienance 


feamess 


disceitfully 


ineonveiniant 
ineonveinee 


feareness 



12 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 







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/r. 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 13 

Below are the problems in arithmetic: 

1. Add together the following numbers: Three thousand and 
nine, twenty-nine, one, three hundred and one, sixty-one, sixteen, 
seven hundred, two, nine thousand, nineteen and a half, one and a 
half. 

2. Multiply 10,008 by 8,009. 

3. In a town five miles wide and six miles long, how many 
acres ? 

4. How many steps of two and a half feet each, will a person 
take in walking- one mile ? 

5 . What is one-third of 1 7 5 J ? 

6. A boy bought three dozen oranges for 37^ cts., and sold 
them for 1^ cts. apiece; what would he have gained if he had sold 
them for 2^ cts. apiece? 

7 . There is a certain number | of which exceeds | of it by 2 ; 
what is the number? 

8. What is the simple interest of $1200 for 12 y. 11 m. 29 d.? 
In examining these papers, twelve and one-half percent was 

allowed for each problem when the answer was correct; nothing 
was credited for method or for partially correct work. The dollar 
sign was omitted in so many answers that it was decided to deduct 
nothing for its omission. The omission of a necessary decimal 
point made an answer incorrect and nothing was allowed even if 
the work was correct in every other particular. Of course this 
method of marking was as fair to the pupils of 1846 as to those of 
1905 for all papers were marked on the same scale. 

The following tables present in a concise form the results of the 
examination in arithmetic in 1846: 



^1 






^^V^m]^ /^-//-^y purr 













7 -^sh 




^/-^'^ 



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PAPERS OF TWO BOYS OF 1846 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



15 



Table III. 





Girls, 29 


Boys, 50 


Total, 79 


PROBLEM 


<u 

HO 



Ho 
10 


o 

is 

19 


O in 
U U 

<x> o 
0,0 


13 

0) 

t/i +j 

HO 



1° 

HO 


H^ 


Percent 
Correct 


0) 
CO +-> 

HO 
■ 


-1-3 
a; a;. 

.s o 
HO 


o 

S o 
H 1— 1 


C o 

U i- 

1-4 Si 

0) o 
OO 


First 


25 


25 


35 


44 




Second 





17 


12 




1 


2,2, 


16 




1 


SO 


28 




Third 


9 


7 


13 




16 


14 


20 




25 


21 


ZZ 




Fourth 


11 





18 




15 


11 


24 




26 


11 


42 




Fifth 





8 


21 




6 


20 


24 




6 


28 


45 




Sixth 


10 





19 




16 


7 


27 




26 


7 


46 




Seventh 


17 


9 


3 




32 


12 


6 




49 


21 


9 




Eighth 


15. 


3 


11 




19 


10 


21 




34 


13 


32 




Total 


62 


54 


116 


23.3 


105 


132 


163 


ZZ 


167 


186 


279 


29.4 



Number who had 

problem correct 

1 problem correct 

2 problems correct 

3 problems correct 

4 problems correct 

5 problems correct 

6 problems correct 

7 problems correct 

8 problemiS correct 



Number who had 

problem omitted 

1 problem omitted 

2 problems omitted 

3 problems omitted 

4 problems omitted 

5 problems omitted 

6 problems omitted 

7 problems omitted 

8 problems omitted 



Table 


IV. 










Girls 


Boys 


To/a/ 




8 


10 


18 








9 


8 


17 








2 


6 


8 








2 


10 


12 








5 


5 


10 








3 


6 


9 











3 


3 











2 


2 

















Table V. 










Girls 


50V5 


Total 




10 


12 


22 








3 


11 


14 








3 


9 


12 








4 


7 


11 








4 


5 


9 








4 


2 


6 








1 


3 


4 











1 


1 


















16 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



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A? 

icy 

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fC 

9 f 
To 



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mn 



5 m'/^ 









^-f U= f^-^r^^;^ 











7^ ^ ' ^ '^^ Iv 



^p^y ^^ 



V tP 



FAC-SIMILE OF AN ARITHMETIC PAPER OF 1846 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 17 

The first two examples, requiring only abstract number work, 
are of the kind in which the "schools of our fathers" are supposed 
to have given that incessant drill in which the modern school is 
said to be lacking. Only 44 percent of the class had the first 
correct, and even in the second where the only chance for a mistake 
was in the actual multiplying, 37 percent or more than one-third 
of the class were wrong. Again in the fifth, another abstract ex- 
ample, for which the drill method should have prepared the pupils, 
six boys found it too difficult even to try and only 36 percent of 
the class had it correct. Of 29 girls, not one had the right answer 
to the fourth or sixth, and only three girls and ten boys worked 
the interest problem to a successful conclusion. 

A striking feature of the work in arithmetic was the variety in 
the answers as obtained by different pupils. The incorrect answers 
were often so far from the correct answers as to overwhelm one with 
the conviction that the children were entirely lacking in power to 
mentally approximate the results. Answers to the fifth example 
varied from 5^ to 6312. Below are some of the incorrect answers 
to the problem in simple interest. Dollar signs, decimal points, 
and commas are the pupils', the first two conspicuous chiefly by 
their absence. 



2.15.80 


93.28 


319661 


87.58.00 


$93.58 


93,580 


1860,58 


96.86 


491040 


110,88,05 


114.00 


892800 




115.08 


1908000 




$179.80 


4593600 




449 . 500 


5587200 




475.00 


170017400 




638.00 


11038980000 




907.92 


72^ 




932.200 






$937.80 






9328. 





In comparing the results in these two tests, it should be remem- 
bered that the pupils who took the tests in 1846 were all high school 
pupils and that the course of study at that time covered only three 



18 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 

years. Further on in this little book is a chapter devoted to the 
discussion of the fairness of these tests but one or two questions 
at least may well be discussed here. Ought not present day ninth 
grade grammar school pupils be better qualified to solve these 
examples in arithmetic than these high school pupils? Had not 
these high school pupils forgotten much of their knowledge of 
arithmetic? These questions naturally suggest themselves to those 
who have in mind only the present day course of study ; but years 
ago the grammar school branches were continued in the high school. 
The first year work in the old high school included work in arith- 
metic, English grammar, geography, history of the United States 
and algebra. Twenty-five weeks were given to arithmetic and about 
half the members of the school took the work. In addition, a ten- 
weeks' course in mensuration was given during the second year, 
while a general review was taken in the last half of the senior year. 

But the objection may be made that the work in arithmetic 
in the old high school was probably advanced work, and as such 
was hardly fitted to prepare these pupils well for abstract work in 
whole numbers and fractions, simple interest and simple mensura- 
tion. Our present course of study for grades eight and nine in- 
cludes work in square root, bank discount, stocks and bonds, 
partial payments, mensuration and inventional geometry. It is 
to be questioned whether the old high school course was more 
advanced than this. These facts would seemingly justify the 
opinion that the high school pupils of 1846 brought to this arith- 
metic test nearly as recent knowledge of the simple operations 
involved as did the children who tried the same work in 1905. 

No such question can be raised regarding the fairness of the test 
in spelling. It will be conceded at once by every fair-minded person 
that these high school children were probably better spellers than 
they were when they were in the highest grammar grade. This 
would be true as a result of the English work in the high school 
even if spelling were not particularly emphasized. But spelling 
was not neglected even in the high school. The principal tells us 
in one of his early reports that regular spelling exercises, which 
were rigidly criticised, were required in the high school until the 
pupils made it obvious that they were no longer necessary. If, as 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



19 



high school pupils, the children averaged only 40.6 percent in this 
spelling test, what would have been the extent of their failure had 
it been given to them as grammar grade pupils? 

The results of these two tests seem to indicate that today, 
children are not only better spellers, but that they reason better 
in arithmetic and are more accurate in ciphering than children of 
about the same age half a centuiy ago. 




4^ 



Locational Geography 

THERE is a strong feeling among the critics of modern educa- 
tion that place geography or the knowledge of the location 
of places is being neglected in our present courses of study 
in elementary schools. Some teachers share this opinion and 
eminent educators are frequently heard to refer to the schools of 
years ago as being much more effective in this line than the schools 
of today. Are these feelings and opinions well founded? Has the 
"enrichment" of the course in geography in lessening the amount 
of drill on location, lessened the children's knowledge of location? 
Opinions unsupported by evidence are hardly to be trusted in 
discussing such questions. What are the facts? 

For the purpose of forming an enlightened opinion on this matter 
the writer has spent some time in investigating former methods 
and in examining old text books and papers. Believing that the 
old geography test of 1846 is a fair example of the work of half a 
century ago, these questions have recently been given to several 
ninth grade classes of different buildings in Springfield and results 
compared. The papers were printed, as in the arithmetic test 
exactly like the original and all the examining and marking was 
done by the writer. ]\Iost of the questions relate to the United 
States, and as North America is made the special subject of study 
in the sixth year of the present school course, pupils of that grade 
could without doubt show better results in this test than the higher 
grade pupils to whom it was given. The work of the ninth year in 
particular has scarcely any connection with the geography of 
North America and these tests were given to the children near the 
end of their ninth year in school. 

The table below gives the result : 

Number of pupils who took test .... 
Average percent correct 

Although neither average is high, the difference, when one 
considers the number of children involved and the narrow character 



1846 


1906 


81 


219 


40.3 


53.4 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 21 

of the test, is sufficiently large to lead one to conclude that the work 
of today in this study is better than it was formerly. 

The questions, nearly all of which relate to the United States, 
follow : 

1. What is Latitude? 

2. What is Longitude? 

3. In what direction does the river St. Lawrence flow? 

4. Name the four large lakes between the United States and 
the British possessions. 

5. Name the States bordering on those four lakes, and their 
capitals. 

6. What large ba}^ lies east of Massachusetts? 

7. Name the New England States and their capitals. 

8. What river is the boundary between South Carolina and 
Georgia? 

9. Name the three large branches of the Mississippi on the 
west side. 

10. What is the largest lake Iving wholly in the United States? 

11. Name the counties in Massachusetts. 

12. Name the largest river in the eastern part of Massachusetts. 
In 1846, when this test was originally given, there were only 

four states bordering on the four great lakes referred to in the fifth 
question. These states were as follows: — New York, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio and Michigan, — and their capitals were Albany, Harrisburg, 
Columbus and Detroit respectively. At that time, also, two of 
the New England States, Rhode Island and Connecticut, had two 
capitals each. These facts were kept in mind in marking the old 
papers. 

Five percent was allowed for correct answers to each of the 
first, second, sixth and twelfth questions, ten per cent for correct 
answers to each of the others. The writer adopted this scale because 
the sixth and twelfth questions related to one state and called for 
single-word answers and the first and second were opposites and 
were generally either both correct or both wrong. Due credit was 
given for a partial answer, as for example, in the fourth, two and 
a half percent was allowed for each lake correctly named. 



22 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 

It needs but a glance at this old test to discover that the ques- 
tions are all tests of the memory; there is not a thought question 
among them. Names of lakes, names of bays, names of rivers, 
names of states, names of capitals, names of counties and for 
variety two definitions! How would the pupils of 1846 have ans- 
wered the following: — Why does the St. Lawrence River never 
have floods? Give causes for the difference in climate between 
England and New England. Why has New York become the great- 
est commercial center in the United States ? Name five cities located 
at the head of navigation on rivers of the United States emptying 
into the Atlantic. 

This old test is indicative of the geography work of the times. 
There were three books in use in Springfield in 1846: — Mitchell's 
Primary Geography, used with children as soon as they were able to 
"spell and read with facility, ' ' Morse's Geography, used in intermediate 
grades, and Mitchell's Geography and Atlas for grammar grade work. 

The primary book contained 83 lessons and 14 maps. In this 
book, the child was introduced to this subject in 15 lessons of which 
the following is a sample : — 

Lesson 3 

Of the Surface of the Earth. 

Question. What is the earth? 

Answer. One of the planets. 

Q. Of what does the surface of the earth consist? 

A . Land and water. 

Q. How much of the earth's surface consists of land? 

A. A quarter, or one-fourth. 

Q. How much more water than land is there? 

A . Three times more water than land. 

Q. What is the chief part of the water on the surface of the 
earth called? 

A. The sea or ocean. 

For the purpose of being more easily understood, different 
parts of the water are called by different names, as you will learn 
in the next lesson. 

Q. Are the waters of the earth salt or fresh? 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 23 

A. They are salt. 

Q. What part of the waters on the earth is fresh? 

A. Lakes and rivers have generally fresh water. 

Such lessons were probably learned and recited in many schools 
in question and answer style as this was a method of recitation 
quite popular in the early days. This catechism work was followed 
by 61 lessons of which 14 were map studies and 47 were devoted to 
the history and general description of the continents and countries. 
These descriptive lessons made little mention of the manners and 
customs of people, — the side of geography especially emphasized 
in lower grade work now, — but place geography or the location of 
places on the maps was given much attention. Children were 
directed to point out not only rivers, cities and countries of near-by 
importance, but such places as " Barbary, Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, 
Darfur, Soudan, Senegambia, Guinea, Ethiopia, Cape Colony, 
Caffraria, Mozambique, Zanguebar, Berbora," etc. In these 14 
lessons the direction, "Point out" is given 146 times followed in 
each case by from five to 1 5 names. In those times the books formed 
principally the courses of study, and we may well conclude that 
before leaving the primary school, the Springfield child had " pointed 
out" and named more or less faithfully hundreds of places on the 
maps. This work was done with children corresponding in age to 
our second, third and fourth grade pupils. 

Morse's Geography used in the middle grades, was a pretentious 
volume of three or four hundred pages of which about one hundred 
were devoted to the study of the United States. The first seventeen 
pages consisted of definitions and explanations supposed to be 
necessary to an understanding of geography. History and de- 
scriptive matter were made prominent. The descriptions, although 
containing much that was interesting to children, still touched 
lightly upon those manners and customs which so attract the 
interest of children today. 

Mitchell's Geography and Atlas was one of the best illustrated 
school books of the time. It was an interesting book of more than 
three hundred pages which was kept up to date by the plan of its 
author providing for a revision every five years. The book began 
with 43 pages of definitions, printed in catechetical style, followed 



24 



THE 



SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



by 25 pages of map questions. There were whole pages of questions 
commencing with " What," — " What sea lies east of Cochin China," 
etc. If this dose of 68 pages of definitions and map questions was 
really administered to the youth of the by-gone generation, the 
school committee were probably not far from the truth regarding its 
effects on the pupils when they stated in an early report that such 
a grinding method, — "after having worked its appropriate results 
on their heads, will be very likely to display its efficacy in their 
heels." This book treated the United States in nearly one hundred 
pages. 

These three books, used in Springfield in 1846 below the high 
school, give us a definite idea regarding the character of the work 
in this study. It is probable that much of the pupil's time was 
spent in learning definitions and "locating" places. The old test 
was such as would naturally follow work in which map- visualizing 
and word-memorizing were so strongly emphasized. Many people 
of today, even, would naturally suppose that pupils who were 
taught according to these drill methods would excel in such a test. 
The results prove the contrary. As further proof of the failure of 
the pupils of the olden time to retain geographical facts, the fol- 
lowing analysis of the geography test of 1846 is submitted. 

Results of Test of 1846 

Number of Pupils who took the test, 81. 
Number of pupils whose answers were 

Correct 



First question 
Second question 
Third question 
Fourth question 
Fifth question 
Sixth question 
Seventh question 
Eighth question 
Ninth question . 
Tenth question 
Eleventh question 
Twelfth question 



27 
21 
22 
19 

1 
65 
18 
29 
18 
16 

2 
24 



uitted 


Incorrect or 




Incomplete 


25 


29 


30 


30 


7 


52 


11 


51 


38 


42 


6 


10 


7 


56 


33 


19 


39 


24 


23 


42 


26 


■53 


23 


^ 34 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 25 



j^OoSo ©iE©©^/A{P¥\'7. 



What IS Latitude ? 



2 What is Loogimde ' 



■i In what direction does the river St Lawrence run ' "CAA^^xy 

4 Name the four large lakes between the United Slates and the Brltl^h pc.^!iesM.>h> Cl/l£^(l/0' O^&CUl- a^ 

5 Name the States bordering on those four lakes, and their capitals 



C. What large Bay lies east of Massachusetts ' ViXM 0%-. ^Xl/yTyOyiA 

7 Name the New England Stales and their capitals. /}ta^<^^?UL ^}7£4yU' 



vem7^,<m/^ e<^9zkZ^[^co(^ '/i^fdi£ayw6 ^^iTza^^aSS:^^ 

.« What river is the boundary between South Carolina.and Georgia >. ^ ^V^^fn^^-i^Z' 

9. Name the 3 largest branches of the Mississippi river on the west side oCkAjCi^ J^'Z^^S^ 

10. What is the largest lake Ijing wholly in the United States ? OZ^^n^l^T^ 



11. Name the counties in Massachusetts. 



12. Name the largest river in the eastern part of Massachusetts ^;y^ C'X-U''iX. /,. ._o 



A GEOGRAPHY PAPER OF 1846 



26 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 

Over one-fourth, or 27.6 percent, of the questions remained 
unanswered. Of the 81 pupils, only one wrote the correct answer 
to the fifth, and but two to the eleventh. None of the 31 girls had 
the fifth or the eleventh correct and only one had the right answer 
to the ninth. 

In answering the first and second questions, two-thirds of the 
pupils failed to distinguish between latitude and longitude. Both 
were designated as "lines," and longitude was defined on one paper 
as "the center of the earth." 

In the third, the St. Lawrence River was made to flow in every 
possible direction, the answers being as follows:— 

North 12 South-east 4 N. and S 1 

North-east 22 South-west 11 N. E. and S. W. . . 2 

North-west 2 East 7 No answer 7 

South 9 West 4 

The chief difficulty in the fourth seemed to be in locating Lake 
Michigan, 47 pupils naming it as part of the boundary line between 
the United States and the British possessions. 

In the sixth, the answer was considered correct if Cape Cod Bay 
or Massachusetts Bay was named. Among the other bays given as 
answers appeared Narragansett, Delaware, Fundy, Baffin and 
Biscay. 

The seventh should have been easily mastered as these children 
must have spent hours of drill on this question. Less than one- 
fourth of the class, however, succeeded. Sixteen states were named 
as belonging to the New England group, among them North and 
South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. Montpelier was named as 
the capital of three of the New England states, while Rhode Island 
was given for its capitals, — Providence, Newport, Newburyport, 
Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. 

Of the 81 pupils, 48 attempted to answer the eighth question. 
Among their answers appeared Savannah, Mississippi, Columbia, 
Susquehanna, Apalachicola, Nueces, Red, Delaware, Rocky, St, 
Lawrence and Alabama, 

The ninth and tenth were among the most difficult, 39 pupils, 
or nearly half the class making no effort to answer the former, 
while only 16 had the latter correct. 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 27 

Ability to name the counties of Massachusetts was one of the 
rigid requirements in the old Bay State schools. Pupils were made 
to repeat the counties in order from Berkshire to Nantucket. In 
the above test, however, only two named the fourteen counties 
correctly, — 26 wrote no answers whatever, while 19 others wrote 
the names of four counties or less. This question alone gave the 
class of 1846 a decided advantage in this comparative test for no 
effort is made today to have children remember names of so many 
counties. 

The Springfield High School was within a few rods of the Con- 
necticut river in w^estem Massachusetts, yet in answering the last 
question, 22 pupils named that river as the largest in the eastern 
part of Massachusetts. The Blackstone, Housatonic, Merrimac, 
Hudson, St. Lawrence and Mississippi were given as answers while 
one boy guessed " Fall River." 

A study of this old test and of the geography text books in use 
at the time it was given should convince us of the futility of the 
methods then largely practised of drilling pupils in locating places 
about which they knew practically nothing. In spite of the num- 
berless hours of drill on the dry bones of geography, children failed 
to retain the facts of location. The modem school is well equipped 
with sand tables, globes and wall maps. Location constantly 
forces itself upon the attention of the child through maps in the 
history and geography texts. Individual teachers, here and there, 
may neglect the drill in location as they may neglect any other 
essential feature of school work, but the modem school aims to 
teach location not merely by map drill but by arousing an interest 
in location through books of travel, — through a study of manners 
and customs and lives of peoples. No amount of dull drill on 
China, — as so many lines and dots, — will fix the map of China in a 
child's mind; but a study of the life of the Chinese people in their 
struggles against nature, — their homes, dress, habits, occupations, 
recreations, cities and means of communication will not only en- 
large and liberalize the child's mind but quite incidentally will fix 
facts of location, — the object so strenuously aimed at by the old 
school. It is the human element which was almost entirely omitted 
from the geography teaching of years ago which makes the study 



28 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 

of mountains and rivers and sea coast worth while. Cape Cod as 
a barren stretch of sand extending into the Atlantic is uninviting, 
but for a hundred years it has worried and destroyed our vessels and 
held the attention of our law makers. Its study is clothed with 
life when, in considering it as a barrier to commerce, we learn about 
shipwrecks, light-houses, light-ships, life-saving stations and canals. 
How much richer is the imagination and life of the child who 
spends part of his time for seven or eight years of his elementary 
school course in reading Jane Andrews' "Each and All" and 
"Seven Little Sisters," Carroll's "Around the World," Chaplin's 
"Little Folks of Other Lands," Kirby's "Aunt Martha's Comer 
Cupboard," Schwatka's "Children of the Cold" and Carpenter's 
travels in the various countries, — than the child's whose precious 
youth is spent in memorizing barren and unemotional facts and in 
fixing in his mind relative positions of unimportant places. A 
student of the old time methods is not surprised when he finds 
evidence proving that intelhgent adults of half a century ago criti- 
cised their own schools severely. In one of the many intelligently 
critical reports of the Springfield School Committee of years ago 
dissatisfaction is expressed because ' ' the hard names of obscure 
and distant places, rivers, mountains, or other objects, perhaps 
in another hemisphere, are required to be committed, together with 
dry details of facts concerning governments, commerce, etc., etc., 
which for the most part are unintelligible to the child." 




Penmanship 



THE Springfield pupils of 1846 wrote a selection of poetry as a 
test in penmanship. These papers of about eighty children 
are preserved in the old volume before mentioned. The 
selection follows : — 

" Culture's hand 
Has scattered verdure o'er the land, 
And smiles and fragrance rule serene, 
Where barren wild usurped the scene. 
And such is man — a soil which breeds 
The sweetest flowers, or vilest weeds; 
Flowers lovely as the morning's light, 
Weeds deadly as the aconite; 
Just as his heart is trained to bear 
The poisonous weed, or flow'ret fair." 

This selection was written in ink of questionable quality on ruled 
paper some of which is of a light blue tint. The papers, not only 
of this set but of the other three sets, are in a good state of pres- 
ervation, but the ink in some cases is somewhat faded. 

In this booklet will be found three pages of reduced reproductions 
of these "specimen penmanship" papers, the work of six pupils 
of the class of 1846. These are presented as evidences of poor work 
in this subject. Many of the old papers testify to the slow, laborious 
effort expended in their production. This crabbed writing, quite 
common in the old school, has been practically eliminated through 
the modern counting method and supervision. Some of the papers 
are excellent. The percentage of exceedingly poor ones, however, 
is very much larger than would be found in a set written by pupils 
of today. There are unquestionably fewer failures in writing under 
our supervised system than there were formerly: there is also, 
of course, greater uniformity, which is not a bad thing if the style 
is satisfactory. An individual style develops very easily and 
quickly under pressure of much writing, and such penmanship 
continues a "good hand" if facility in movement, and ability to 
produce fundamental lines have been acquired. 



30 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



Qy'-^t (TT^i^oc^ Ctn^.4ULi^ <^ CHe? 4iiJiii. *4<^\ aj Cv qM^, 






I ^ — j 



SPECIMEN PENMANSHIP OF TWO PUPILS OF 1846 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 31 







/^A^Ju^ /^^-uM^^^ ^Zcy-tu^Ui^ ZtJ«4^^e*^726£e--<^e.e-<^Z^«' 

SPECIMEN PENMANSHIP OF TWO PUPILS OF 1846 



32 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 









SPECIMEN PENMANSHIP OF TWO PUPILS OF 1846 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 33 

It would, of course, be impossible in such a small publication as 
this, to reproduce a sufficient number of whole papers of penman- 
ship to enable the reader to compare the work of two large classes 
of pupils. In order that such a comparison may be made, however, 
as will enable the reader to form a fair opinion regarding penman- 
ship, the following plan has been carried out. The work of 24 girls 
of 1846 is exhibited on page 34. On the opposite page is the work 
of 24 girls of the ninth grade of 1906. The fac-similes of 1846 were 
formed by photographing 24 papers and taking the first line from 
the first paper, the second line from the second paper, etc., omitting 
only such papers as could not be reproduced. The papers in the 
old volume are arranged alphabetically and, in these exhibits, the 
papers were photographed as they happened to come. The originals 
of the fac-similes of 1906 were formed by each girl writing one line 
of the stanza on "half letter" paper, the first girl writing the first 
hne, the second girl the second line, etc., according to the regular 
seating arrangement of the class. The two pages of exhibits of 
boys' writing were obtained in a similar way. These exhibits speak 
for themselves. 

Anybody who would examine the eighty or more sheets of 
specimen penmanship of the class of 1846 would be almost willing 
to accept the statement of the School Committee of Springfield in 
their report of 1853, that, " * * there are but few in our schools who 
attain excellence in this beautiful accomplishment, or even a moder- 
ate degree of skill." Engraved copies and penmanship super- 
visors came to the rescue later. During the past ten or fifteen years, 
people's ideas regarding penmanship have been quite unsettled, 
owing to the agitation over the slant and vertical systems, and 
changes have followed one another rapidly in most communities. 
The ninth grade children whose writing is exhibited in these pages 
had been taught three different styles in their nine years of school. 
In the primary grades, they wrote the slant; then, for five or six 
years, the vertical was practiced ; finally, about a year before they 
wrote the lines exhibited here, they changed to the semi-slant. 
These changes have resulted, probably, in lowering somewhat the 
character of the writing of the present-day school children, but, 
in spite of this, the results, as a whole, seem decidedly superior to 
those attained under old-time methods. 



'WlLiAJ^ 4^>^^.t.t^^ .^lA^ijLU. .U.X^U}>,^^I2JUL Ptk^ J^.CAAji^ 



Ct-'I-cL -J^iJlA ^ 'T^ilcV'l. tC- ^tr-t^ luJt^'tLji .p^ixJi 

PENMANSHIP OF 24 GIRLS OF 1846 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 35 



uyT^^^..^^ ^^^zz-e.^^^-^,^ c^t>!^.^^ -<i-c<i-,i..:-'j^^a.ys-^z:S ^:^^^i^ /O.-c^^^ 

Cl-Tn^ ^.<1^U^U L4 'TK.c:iyrV — U^.,.UhX U^^A^ty 7-^^€^ 
'^'f^ .-^d^LA-^-e-C^te^.C^ --£^£'e>-t..t^~eyt^^ <3'^^i^t_-<^^.,2^ Cdxs^-^;?^; 



PENMANSHIP OF 24 GIRLS OF 1906 



r /c ^/ / 



-^-^^I'-e^Ss^ ^-t^^ -^t^V-Zt'-c:. 



"^^ ^^ 







PENMANSHIP OF 20 BOYS OF 1846 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 37 



LyC^-ti^ -'CZ-J'^^Z-^--^^^ <5Z<;»2£=?^ -;(^£^^^ .o-z-'C-j:^ ."^Z-c^C^^ 




jL-c^ CUfTtAx^ ^JLe<:z.-^^...c^ Z^^^^t;^.^^*-^:.^,^ 2^c.</i:<5z..^fc^ 



PENMANSHIP OF 24 BOYS OF 1906 



Successful Careers of Pupils of 1846 

TRACING the after lives of the pupils of the class of 1846 
reveals much of value to parents and teachers. Some mem- 
bers of the class are still living in Springfield. They have 
furnished much valuable information for this booklet regarding 
conditions in the old schools, and have made it possible to trace the 
careers of some of their classmates. One of the Springfield citizens 
has been mayor of the city; another is a leading business man. 
Both were successful in the tests and both are most estimable 
citizens. A girl who attempted only four of the eight examples 
and had them all wrong, became an honored member of the Spring- 
field school board. A boy, who missed nineteen of the twenty 
words and who solved only three of the eight examples correctly, 
became president of a bank, and for years was one of Springfield's 
foremost citizens. Business success came to him partly as a result 
of sterling honesty; and sympathy, charity and broad helpfulness 
characterized his life. At his death, his city paid unusual honor 
to his memory. Another boy who had but two examples correct 
and misspelled nine words rose to the head of a bank in a large city 
in a neighboring state. Still another boy, who could not do a single 
example and who could spell but six words correctly, became 
mayor of a western city. 

There is more to life than spelling and arithmetic, and school 
room estimates of children are often narrow and unjust. Qualities 
of character which cannot be measured by a spelling test nor by 
school standards are determining factors in life's work. In recent 
years, child study, with its fruits, — sympathy, charity, optimism, — 
has done much to break up the rigidity of our judgments of children 
and to make the paths of the receptive, diffident, backward, and 
wayward children happier and more hopeful. Through experience 
and maturity is acquired, slowly, the wisdom to look "into the 
Endless Promise" of childhood and see 

"Good lying hid from all eternity." 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



39 



J^^<^ 



^,->^ /^/^-^ /^ 















AN EXCELLENT PAPER, THE WRITER BECAME MAYOR OF SPRINGFIELD 










& 

7 

/ 

II 

■If, 

2/; 




/ 



^'T^^tJ^M/j'Vii^ 



Ci^/lej^tLC 



hUMtA- 



THE BOY WHO MADE THESE MISTAKES BECAME A VERY 
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MAN 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



41 



^0 fj 






I 



ci^^. 







»nr 



THE WRITER OF THIS PAPER BECAME TREASURER OF A 
BANK IN A CITY OF 100,000 POPULATION 



A 















L 



y^y2^gUr?'Tjre^O-^nte£i7 :f<t< 




dlhJ^^ 







^1. 



THE BOYHOOD MISTAKES 'OF A MAYOR OF A WESTERN CITY 



Conditions in the Old Schools 

ARE these comparisons fair? Were not the schools conducted 
in such a manner in 1846 as to make a fair comparison 
impossible today? Was not the school year shorter than 
it is now? Were not the high school pupils younger than the 
present ninth grade children? Should not these tests have been 
given to pupils of the eighth or possibly the seventh grade ? These 
questions can be answered only by giving some facts about the 
schools of 1846. 

The Springfield high school in 1846 was located on State street, 
on the site of the present court house. The building was of brick, 
and two stories high, with an entrance on State street. It must 
have been about 80 or 90 feet long and 50 or 60 feet wide. There 
was a house between it and Elm street, and a lane connected the 
two streets west of the school. The high school was organized in 
1841 for the center district of the town. Rev. Samuel Lawton was 
its first principal, and was succeeded in 1844 by Ariel Parish. 
Near the close of Mr. Lawton's term the building was remodeled, — 
a two-story addition being built on the State street end. This 
addition provided recitation rooms on each floor, and it was sur- 
mounted by a bell tower. On the first floor of the building were 
two rooms; one, on the east side, occupied by primary pupils, 
the other, on the west side, used for intermediate classes. On the 
second floor were the grammar and high schools. The furniture 
on this floor consisted of painted pine desks roughly finished. 
These desks and their supports were entirely of wood, and were 
made to accommodate pupils singly. The double desks with iron 
supports were just coming into use and w^ere installed in the new 
building on Court street, which was opened a few years later. 
There was a raised platform, two steps in height, in the south end 
of the room, which had to be crossed by children in passing from 
the main room to the recitation rooms. The principal's desk stood 
near the center of the raised platform. While Mr. Parish was 
principal the whole second floor in the older part of the building 
was all one room. As the room was three or four times as large as one 



44 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 



of our schoolrooms, there was no difficulty in conducting several 
recitations at the same time. 

In 1846, the high school was in fair condition. It consisted of 
about one hundred pupils, who were considered well fitted for high 
school work. Mr. Parish, the principal, tells us in his report that 
one and one-half years before, " a second male teacher was em- 
ployed, who took off a large class of the younger and most backward 
pupils." The foreign, non-English speaking element, which makes 
instruction so difficult in many of the schools today, was entirely 
lacking, as is shown by the list of family names of the class of 1846 
printed below : 



Aitcheson 


Ennis 


Kendall 


Smith 


Allen 


Emmons 


Kittredge 


Spooner 


Barnes 


Edwards 


Lee 


Stevens 


BHss 


Eldredge 


Lombard 


Savage 


Bush 


Freeman 


Moore 


Safford 


Bartlett 


Ferre 


Morris 


Stebbins 


Belden 


Folsom 


Mosely 


Simpson 


Bowles 


Fitch 


Nettleton 


Sikes 


Blair 


Glover 


Norcott 


Taylor 


Brackett 


Goodman 


Parks 


Todd 


Bradley 


Grover 


Phipps 


Trask 


Bryant 


Graves 


Peabody 


Tiffany 


Bemis 


Gardner 


Parker 


Ward 


Colton 


Hallett 


Robinson 


Washburn 


Clark 


Hatfield 


Rowland 


Wilcox 


Chapin 


Hastings 


Ross 


Wright 


Church 


Harris 


Reynolds 


Whittlesey 


Devine 


Hills 


Sanderson 


Wallace 


Dwight 


Hunt 




Ware 


Daniels 


Jones 






Day 








The school 


year was longer 


than it is now 


'. The report of the 


school committee for the year 


1846 tells us 


that the school year 


commenced or 


I the Monday after "Thanksgiving week" and con- 


sisted of four terms of eleven weeks each, — a 


total of 44 weeks of 


actual school 


work. Children 


attended school six hours a day, 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 45 

from 9.00 o'clock to 12.00, and from 1.30 to 4.30. During the 
summer term school began at 8.00 o'clock and lasted until 5.00, 
the two sessions being each three hours in length, with an interval 
of three hours between. Our school year is approximately 1,000 
hours in length, — 40 weeks of 25 hours each. In 1846 schools were 
in session about 1320 hours, — 44 weeks of 30 hours each. The child 
who attended school three years then spent as many hours in school 
as one who attends four years now. 

The work had been supervised, and Springfield schools were 
even then among the best. Springfield was the first town in Massa- 
chusetts to appoint a man as superintendent of schools who was not 
already on the school board. Samuel S. Green began his work as 
superintendent of schools in October, 1840, six years before these 
tests were given. He held two meetings of teachers each week, one 
in the north part of the town and one in the south. The result of 
his work was epitomized by Horace Mann in a letter to the Spring- 
field committee early in 1842. The letter, after referring to a recent 
visit by Mr. Mann to seven of Springfield's schools, says: "I am 
sure your schools have made more progress within the last 18 
months than during the three previous years." Francis Dwight, 
editor of the New York District School Journal, who had been for 
many years well acquainted with Springfield schools and who had 
recently visited a number of them, wrote about the same time in 
the highest terms of the "evidences of vigorous and true advance- 
ment." This pioneer work in expert supervision was indicative of 
the earnest, aggressive manner in which the Springfield school 
board attacked the problem of common school education, and it 
placed the public schools of the town among the best in the state. 

The average age at which pupils entered the high school was 
about as high as it is today. In 1846, of the 3,351 pupils enrolled 
in Springfield, 166 were over 16 years of age. As many as 60 or 70 
of these must have been in the high school ; this would leave in the 
grammar schools about 100, or three percent of the total number 
enrolled. In 1905, of the 9,576 pupils enrolled below the high school, 
only 238, or less than 2\ percent, were over 15^ years of age. 
In 1846 there were 53 children under four years of age attending 
school; in 1905, excluding kindergartens, there were only twenty- 



46 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 

four children under five years. These figures prove that in 1846 
larger proportions of the children enrolled below the high school 
were under five years of age and over sixteen than is true at the 
present time. We would conclude also that as the high school 
course covered three years the average age of the pupils of the old 
high school would be about the same as that of the pupils who are 
doing the work of the first two years in the high school today. 

The course of study in 1846 was quite definite. Reading, writ- 
ing, arithmetic, geography and spelling were about all the branches 
taught below the high school. Spelling was strongly emphasized, 
as the following extracts from the course of study and high school 
principal's report show: — 

"No one shall be advanced to the second class (third year 
primary) who cannot spell with ease and propriety the words 
in ' My First School Book.' " 

" No one to be advanced to the first class (fourth year pri- 
mary) who cannot spell words easily in the first fifty pages of 
the Spelling Book." 

"Accuracy in spelling and excellence in reading are deemed 
of the first importance." 

"Ability to spell correctly is deemed highly important, as 
lying at the foundation of all requirements, without which no 
person can be accurate or intelligible as a scholar, or ever safe 
from exposure to great mortification in after life." 

" Regular exercises are required in this branch (in the high 
school), which are rigidly criticised until the pupils make it 
obvious that they are no longer necessary." 
How many of the 1,320 hours were given to drill in spelling it 
would be difficult to tell. With Springfield at one end of the state 
declaring that ability to spell lay ' ' at the foundation of all require- 
ments," and that "no person could be intelligible as a scholar" 
without it; and Cambridge at the other end urging the use of the 
spelling book as a book which in the day of the fathers was "ever 
acknowledged 'the only sure guide to the English tongue,' " we may 
reasonably conclude that not only in Springfield, but throughout 
the state, spelling was given the place of prominence. These facts 
and statistics seem to prove that Springfield's schools were such in 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 47 

1846 that those who took the tests originally had many advantages 
over the ninth grade pupils, to whom the tests were given in 1905-06. 
English was spoken in all the homes ; the school year was one-third 
longer than it is now ; six years before the tests were given a super- 
intendent had begun his expert work ; there were few studies, hence 
more time could be given to each ; the high school was well estab- 
lished, as it had been in existence five years under two able princi- 
pals ; the young and backward children had been taken out of the 
high school nearly two years before; and, finally, the average age 
of the pupils was higher than that of the present ninth grade. 

Yet with all these advantages, and compared only in the few 
branches on which all the hours were spent and in which the old 
schools were supposed to excel, the children of today proved 
decidedly more efficient. Does this not seem to indicate that there 
was something wrong in the old-time methods? The critics of 
today were children in the schools whose methods and results they 
praise. Were they capable of forming a correct judgment of the 
character of the work? What did the adults, — the members of 
school committees, — of that generation think of the schools which 
they supported and in which their children were being educated? 
There is plenty of evidence in the Springfield reports bearing upon 
this question As early as 1840, the school committee expressed 
themselves as follows : — 

"There are prominent faults in which spelling, English 
grammar, arithmetic and geography, are taught in many of 
our schools." 

Spelling: ''Discharging at a class whole columns of words, 
with the meaning of which, they are as familiar as they would 
be with so many terms selected from the Hebrew or Sanscrit, 
is certainly not a very fascinating mode of teaching pupils the 
orthography of our language." 

Arithmetic and Grammar: '' Taxing their memories with 
the rules of grammar and arithmetic, whilst they know nothing 
of their true import or application" — is condemned. 

Reading: "The most superficial inspection of our schools, 
is sufficient to disclose in this particular, not only a multitude 
of faults, but a whole system of fundamental error. Indeed it may 



48 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 

be doubted whether its intrinsic importance has been in any due 
degree felt by the mass of those to whom the management of 
these schools has been submitted. Had it been, our schools in 
this particular, would be already undergoing a radical reform, 
and the equanimity of the committee or visitors would no 
longer be disturbed by the senseless jingle of sentences as a 
substitute for reading. ' ' 

Penmanship: (In Report of 1853): " * * there are 
but few in our schools who attain excellence in this beautiful 
accomplishment, or even a moderate degree of skill." 
Yet Springfield's schools were admittedly among the best in the 
state, then as now. Are not such statements, made by the adults 
then in control of the old schools, more reliable than the present-day 
laudation of the same schools by people who saw only through the 
eyes of childhood? 

Somewhat astonishing in view of the criticism of modern methods 
of teaching and of so-called "fads," are the recommendations made 
by the Springfield school committee in 1840. 

"For an exercise in spelling, let the words be selected from 
some paragraph that has been read. Let their meaning also be 
understood; and then let them be zvritten out by each scholar 
in the class. This will afford exercise for the mind. Not only 
will the ear be employed, but the eye; to which latter sense 
spelling is really addressed. Instead of one, two of the organs 
of sense will be engaged, of which, that of sight is always more 
conducive to distinct and lasting impressions on the mind." 
This is in substance the modem method of teaching spelling! 
Again in 1853, in order to improve the penmanship, the committee 
suggested as "one way of meeting the difficulty" that a "profes- 
sional teacher of penmanship" be connected with the department. 
In the same report was the suggestion that drawing lessons should 
be given in the high school and upper grammar grades by a special 
teacher. Thus was foreshadowed our present supervised system! 
But what must have seemed to their fellow citizens a really 
revolutionary idea was promulgated by the committee in that 
famous report of 1840, to which reference has been made before, — a 
report which does credit alike to the critical judgment and the 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 49 



constructive intelligence of the five men who adopted it. To quote 
at length : — 

* * the committee would respectfully suggest the 
propriety of an appropriation for the purchase of apparatus to 
be used by the Superintendent in familiar lectures on the sub- 
jects of Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy. Many 
of the sublime doctrines of these sciences might thus be stated 
and illustrated, and brought down to the comprehension of the 
older classes of pupils in our schools. It would awaken their 
curiosity, furnish topics for contemplation, and impart an 
impulse that might result, on the part of many of them, in high 
attainments in these branches of knowledge. If ' fragrance 
after showers is sweet' to them, might it not be equally grateful 
to know by the aid of some optical apparatus, how the bow is 
formed, which 'spans the cloud in the day of rain;' and how 
the red colorings and purple tinges of evening are penciled on 
the clouds and on the sky, as the sun sinks away from their 
sight? Would not a good telescope and microscope reveal 
wonders even to their young gaze, and give them a more im- 
pressive sense of the greatness and glory of that God, in whose 
universe they live, and to whose judgment bar they are account- 
able?" 
Sciences brought down to the comprehension of the older classes of 
pupils to impart an impulse! 

Here were men, — compelled under the law to visit the schools 
once a month, — who were not satisfied with the oral spelhng bees, 
the memory grinds, the "senseless" reading, the heart-breaking 
machine-making methods, the narrow course which failed to open 
up the mind of the child or to make strong and lasting impressions 
and plant ideals at the root of character. Here were men of vision ; 
men who saw clearly the broader and deeper mission of the public 
school; men who reached bravely for the soul in education. It is 
the seriousness, intelligence, and brave ambitious spirit of men like 
these in control of the educational interests of many communities, 
that, in a half century, have brought their vision to a reahzation 
.in systems of schools of which richness of material in the course of 
study and excellence of supervision are the comer stones. From 



50 THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 

the earliest days, under the watchfulness of committees as intelligent 
as any in the country, this community of Springfield, almost ideal 
in its location and citizenship, has pushed steadily onward in 
developing its public schools, — molding, perfecting, broadening ; — a 
wise experimenter, an intelligent pioneer. Today, as in the time 
of Horace Mann, its schools stand for what educators believe to be 
the best ideas in education, and for this reason it offers as fitting an 
opportunity as any place in the country to bring to a decisive 
test the new and old ideas in public school work. 

Whatever may be said regarding the schools of half a 
century ago, either in praise or criticism, — and much can be said 
in praise, — these old test papers present indisputable evidence of 
their inferiority as compared with the schools of the present day. 
Those who are thoroughly familiar with the modem school readily 
see why the work in the common branches is better today than it 
could have been years ago. Superior text-books, maps and general 
equipment; — higher educational qualifications and better profes- 
sional training for teachers; — compulsory supervision; improve- 
ments in methods of instruction in spelling, arithmetic, geography 
and reading ; smaller classes, although much is yet to be desired in 
this particular; — all tend to bring about better results. The 
benefits of a richer reading course alone can hardly be estimated. 
In 1846, excluding the text-books in geography, history and physi- 
ology, eleven different books were read below the high school, — 
about one a year; children now read 73, or about eight each year, 
in taking the same course. The taste for reading is today stimulated 
and directed and from the amount and quality of the reading matter, 
the child acquires a larger vocabulary and learns to spell many new 
words unconsciously. Children are not only receiving much solider 
and more sensible and skilful instruction in the three R's, but their 
homes are being elevated, their lives broadened and enriched, and 
their usefulness and capacity for enjoyment increased as never 
before. The old school, in its meagemess, starved the imagination 
and emotions, and its harsh discipline suppressed and warped 



THE SPRINGFIELD TESTS 51 

activities. Even a superficial reading of the old records and reports 
prove that the intelligent people of those times were cognizant of 
its defects and struggled to remedy them. The leading educators 
of today are probably fully as cognizant of the defects of the modem 
school and are struggling with equal sincerity and earnestness for 
better things. 



THE three R's, — reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, — are not 
being neglected in the present day schools, but the public 
school system has passed irrevocably beyond the stage 
where its only office was to impart a little skill in these branches. 
It has entered upon its broader work of preparing the youth of 
America to live intelligently, to understand and appreciate the 
inheritance of freedom which is theirs, and to grasp the great truth 
that mankind are one. The changes and improvements in the 
course of study necessitated by this enlarging of the function of 
the school will continue ; and, as there will always be conservatives 
in the world, — the "Three R's," in a slightly modified form in 
different generations, will ever be a live question. In politics, 
religion, science, — in every branch of human progress, the old 
established ideas will continue to have hosts of defenders. Every 
new idea in public education must prove its right to public support. 
The survival of the fittest is a law here as elsewhere. An idea which 
is only ephemeral in character, — which lacks the resistant power 
to withstand public investigation and criticism, — has no place in 
practical, virile education. But ideas which have their roots in 
the best thought of half a century, — like many of our so-called 
fads, — are entitled to something more than thoughtless criticism. 
However highly may be regarded the schools of our childhood, 
intelligent people will never allow childhood's exaggerated and 
distorted notions to exercise too great an influence in shaping their 
opinions as adults. Lowell may not have had the three R's in 
mind when he wrote the following, but nothing could be more 
applicable than his much-quoted lines : — 

"Therefore think not the Past is wise alone 
For yesterday knows nothing of the Best." 



oci ?e 



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THE F. A. BASSETTE CO., Printers 
Springfield, Mass. 



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